Eco-dystopias: Special Issue of Critical Survey- Completed articles by 1st September 2013

CFP: Special issue of Critical Survey on Eco-dystopias for publication in 2013.

Submissions are invited of completed articles for a special issue of the journal Critical Survey, devoted to representations of environmental dystopias in literature and the visual arts. Recent discussions in the media have focused attention on the emergence of 'cli-fi' (climate fiction) as a sub-genre of science fiction. Works of cli-fi explore imaginary futures and places in which global environmental catastrophe, brought on by climate change, has come to pass. Writing in The Guardian in May 2013, the novelist Rodge Glass noted that "[w]hereas 10 or 20 years ago it would have been difficult to identify even a handful of books that fell under this banner, there is now a growing corpus of novels setting out to warn readers of possible environmental nightmares to come." This crop of recent responses to climate change can, however, be mapped against a much more extensive body of dystopian imaginings that might broadly be termed 'ecological' rather than – or as well as -- 'social' or 'political'. A great deal of dystopian writing and film-making since the 1950s has responded to the prevailing discourses of environmentalism. This special issue invites critical essays that consider dystopian imaginative responses (in fiction, poetry, film, or the visual arts) to environmental anxiety, not necessarily limited to our current focus on climate change. Potential submissions might explore, for instance, how writers, film-makers or artists have addressed the ecological implications of: • Overpopulation • Viruses, outbreaks, epidemics • Genetic engineering • Virtual reality, cybernetics, robotics • Deforestation • Species extinction • Climate change Completed essays should be submitted to Dr Rowland Hughes (r.w.hughes@herts.ac.uk) and/or Dr Pat Wheeler (p.a.wheeler@herts.ac.uk) by 1st September 2013, with the intention of going to press before the end of 2013.